


Roses are sweet (but not when they rot on the stem)

by Dark_at_Noon



Series: The Heir of The Black Arrow [1]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, alfrid's A+ parenting, world building
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2018-03-06 20:09:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3147041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dark_at_Noon/pseuds/Dark_at_Noon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alfrid Lickspittle is, by all accounts, an unattractive, horrible little man. He stands a mere five feet, seven inches tall, reeks of spoiled meat, and is coated in enough grease to survive being submerged in Long Lake in the winter for a great deal of time, much like a seal. An incredibly ugly seal. He is also a lonely man who fashions himself in love with women who remind him of his sister, who he had killed. Girls like diamonds, girls with skin like copper and hair like silver. Girls who smile at him with pity and try to ignore the fact that he is hideous and smells like a decomposing corpse in the middle of the summer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Roses are sweet (but not when they rot on the stem)

**Author's Note:**

> SUICIDE TW. It's only brief and did not trigger me to remember my own attempt as I wrote it but if you are delicate do not read because i don't want anybody to get hurt  
> formal apology for   
> a. whatever this is forgive me im drunk   
> and   
> b. not updating teacher paradox in literally 3399393 years i havent even been doing anything to excuse it  
> the only bofta spoilers are that alfrids surname is lickspittle, the dragon is dead and bain is a babe (luv u bby) because i refuse canon   
> mrs. bard looks like Norah Jones or Judith Hill if y'all need the headcast idk   
> ALSO: the master is not given a name in PJ's adaptations, so here he is Maxwell a la the play adaptation by Edward Mast.

Alfrid Lickspittle is, by all accounts, an unattractive, horrible little man. He stands a mere five feet, seven inches tall, reeks of spoiled meat, and is coated in enough grease to survive being submerged in Long Lake in the winter for a great deal of time, much like a seal. An incredibly ugly seal. Women avoid him like he has the plague (when he did actually have the plague, the master gave him a jug of wine and some ham and he struggled through the sickness while the old master stroked his brow.) On some occasions, Alfrid has actually taken his relief, if he could call it that, face down in the masters bed, imagining that he was being taken by Bard the Bargeman. There is an urban legend, amongst the women and girls of Laketown, and later Dale, that if you kiss Alfrid, you will become a greedy, money grabbing wench who sleeps with old men for money. It is not far from true. Alfrid’s mother had been an unattractive, horrible little woman, who had, unsurprisingly, also lain down for her master. It was a time honoured family tradition, really, to take it all from the master. In fact, a similar rumour had gone around about both of her parents. It was what had drawn them together and begun their love affair.

But there were three things about Alfrid that many people did not know, or were entirely too horrified to mention, because the idea of it made them sick.

The first of these was probably the most horrific. It was, simply, that at one point there had been a Mrs. Lickspittle. In fact, there had been two Mrs. Lickspittles, Aetta and Molda. Aetta had been only thirteen years old when she had married Alfrid because her father had wanted power, and Alfrid had doted on her. He brought her flowers, nice dresses, necklaces with stones the size of his fists… things that women want. Aetta had responded to his devotion by crying and screaming when Alfrid bedded her, drinking heavily and giving Alfrid two sons, Asmund and Ivar, who had none of their father in them and looked suspiciously like Ralf Hackett from Bakers Lane and then had promptly jumped from their bedroom window into the lake with rocks in her pockets (the man who had fished out Aetta’s body had seen the bruises on her face and the fact her skull was caved in in a way that could not have possibly been accounted to the fall, but he had mysteriously fallen in and drowned before he could relay this information to anybody else.)  Molda had married him because she was the only woman in Dale uglier and greedier than Alfrid himself (they had met as she commended him on his sly escape during the Battle of The Five Armies.) Molda gave Alfrid five children, all of whom were as ugly and cruel as their parents, and continued on the line of being horrifically greedy little shits for many generations.

The second was that Alfrid was, in fact, related to Bard the Dragonslayer in a way that made them both deeply uncomfortable. Bard’s wife, now called the late Lady Gudrun (but prior to Bard ascending the throne, the bargemans whore) was in fact, Alfrid’s younger sister. Alfrid’s father had lain with Alfrid’s mother only once as a very young man drunk off Westerosi wine, and he refused to acknowledge Alfrid’s existence until the day he died. Alfrid had liked to visit his younger sister, who had cared for him in the way that people cared for kin who had been kicked in the head by farm animals. She sewed him clothes and made him soap, and he had dutifully worn her tunics and breeches and washed his face and hair and body, so he had no spots or boils visble, and he was much less greasy. Gudrun had also forced her older brother to wax his eyebrow, and he had looked significantly less like his mother for a great period of time. However, Gudrun had been spoiled by Bard in Alfrid’s eyes, as he took her maidenhead before they were wed- or even engaged- and she was quite pregnant when she married. After the birth of Sigrid, Gudrun had not the time or the energy to care for her older brother, and Alfrid had been left to his own devices, slithering his way into the master’s services. On the night that Gudrun died, Alfrid had drunkenly staggered into the path of Bard as he rushed for the doctor, and enaged him in a fist fight. The ten minute delay had been enough time for Gudrun to slip onto the path that led her to the world beyond. Alfrid never forgave himself for murdering the one person who had ever truly loved him, and devoted himself more and more to the master.

The third and final thing about Alfrid that the people ignored was the way he treated their future consort. He would ask singers to play the songs about her, he asked his daughters to go to court and speak to her, he would write her bizarre letters calling her his beautiful love and telling her to leave the son of the bowman and run away with him. He had tried to interrupt the wedding, and Bain had shown him the flat of his sword, before punching Alfrid’s third son so hard that poor Tor still had difficulties with his nose. Alfrid also considered himself in love with the future Queen under the mountain- his own niece!- the Queen of Rohan and, upsettingly, Legolas. Alfrid’s desire for money had turned into a desire for women with eyes or hair or skin like gems and precious metals.

Alfrid Lickspittle is, by all accounts, an unattractive, horrible little man. He stands a mere five feet, seven inches tall, reeks of spoiled meat, and is coated in enough grease to survive being submerged in Long Lake in the winter for a great deal of time, much like a seal. An incredibly ugly seal. He is also a lonely man who fashions himself in love with women who remind him of his sister, who he had killed. Girls like diamonds, girls with skin like copper and hair like silver. Girls who smile at him with pity and try to ignore the fact that he is hideous and smells like a decomposing corpse in the middle of the summer. 

**Author's Note:**

> this is world building for somethin big coming so if u enjoyed this please let me know :)


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